Authors: Rhiannon Paille
24 - The Citrine Flame
A deafening scream rang out. Shimma feigned interest as the Flame struggled against the weight of the shaman, but Rand forced her to her knees. Shimma looked at her sand covered dress and heaved a sigh. Rand bound her hands behind her back and shoved a piece of cloth in her mouth. He tied it around her neck.
The bonfire blazed, the cove an eerie quiet other than the girl’s whimpering shrieks. Threads of blonde hair fell around her face as tears streaked her splotchy red cheeks. Rand held his hands to the sky and glanced at Shimma and her sisters. He was a wall—thick-chested, wide-armed, and short. Graying hairs moved in the wind, his wrinkled face a mask of disgust. Shimma bowed her head. Kuruny and Kazza followed suit. Kuruny held a raven’s feather; Shimma, a bowl of water; and Kazza, a smoking sage. Around them, distinguished members of the village stood, each of them silent, each of them ignoring the cries of the girl.
Rand thrust the girl to the fire and stepped into his place amidst the circle. He raised his hands to the tall bonfire and shouted at the cloudy sky. The sisters broke out of the circle, silently closing the distance between themselves and the girl. Shimma whispered words under her breath as she watched her sisters do the same. Ritual work between them was always like this: serious, silent. Shimma’s limbs buzzed, proof the energy weaving worked.
The girl wriggled and cast her murky yellow eyes at Shimma as she passed. They were flecked with specks of black. Shimma stole a careful glance at her sisters as they approached. Kuruny dipped the feather into the heady water and knelt down in front of the girl while Kazza created a smaller circle around her, waving a burning sage bushell. Shimma held the bowl and waited as Kuruny covered the girl in sticky liquid.
Rand began chanting in a low tone. The fire sizzled and cracked as they raised the energy necessary to cleanse the demon from the girl.
She was a Flame after all.
Not only that, but she was the Flame of Hope. The villagers believed in her.
Kuruny bent down and faced the girl. She was still in a rage, the thing inside of her festering, keeping her locked inside herself. Shimma watched her older sister, the most adept of the three at magic. She had seen Kuruny do worse things on Nimphalls in the name of magic; this was tame in comparison. Shimma stayed quiet while Kuruny carefully pulled the gag out of her mouth and the girl chanted things in her own language.
Her words slurred together like whispers until Kuruny pulled the black stone out of the water and placed it on the girl’s tongue. Shimma stepped back as the girl’s eyes rolled into the back of her head. She fell on the sand convulsing, the energy in the stone ripping the demon from her insides. Rand and the others began stomping, raising enough energy to bring back the essence of the Flame, the thing lost beneath the demonic energy forcing her to mutter idle curses.
Shimma fixed her eyes on the girl. Pity filled her heart as she continued chanting under her breath. There was a crack that sounded like lightning, but it came from the other side of the bonfire. Shimma looked up as one of Rand’s men was shoved into the fire. Her eyes widened as the circle broke and an all out attack began. Shadowy creatures descended on the cove in silent terror, shrieks ringing out, metal clanging, fire blazing as the bonfire protested. The Daed, she realized. They fought with a swiftness and courage no other human fought with, their blades singeing hairs on the backs of the villagers’ necks. They fatally wounded two of Rand’s men before the entire battalion of villagers kicked up weapons hidden in the sand and fought back.
Shimma found herself frozen on the other side of the bonfire. She watched the men as they scuffled, paying attention to their muffled cries for help. The Daed seem to gracefully glide and dart around the men. She closed her eyes and whispered an incantation of protection. Glancing around, Kuruny and Kazza were gone. She turned and turned and spotted Kazza at the edge of the cave, the girl in hand, plotting to disappear into the cave.
So they could try the ritual again.
She bit her lip, her vision so blurred she picked up the sage and waved it front of her. Smoke billowed out from the edges of it, but nothing felt clean. She felt hopeless. First Krishani and now the enemies.
Krishani.
This was his fault.
She pulled the folds of her blue gown off the sand and darted behind the line of huts covering the shore, making the village look small. Krishani was safely tucked away in the crevasse beside the overhanging cliff in a long tunnel-like crack wide enough for huts to scatter alongside it. Their people lived far into the underground crack between the soil and it always kept them safe. Shimma skipped through the mud unseen. As she ran she wondered why she never heeded the warnings, why she insisted on helping the humans on Nimphalls when all they did was fight. None of them would ever accept the other side for what they were.
She hiked up her dress, keeping her eyes to the ground until she heard voices. Shimma darted behind a sand dune and peeked over it only to see Kuruny smack square into Krishani. Her sister fell on the ground and cursed, an alarmed voice rising above her wail.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
Kuruny stood and dusted herself off, shooting a deadly look in Krishani’s direction.
“None of your business,” she spat.
Shimma was going to find him, but only to tell him whatever he was, he was attracting attention. There was a full-out battle on the beach.
“I heard shrieking, and—” Krishani cut off. Shimma saw his jaw tense as his eyes widened. He pulled his hand into a fist as he set cold eyes on Kuruny. Shimma was pained. She had seen that look before and she never wanted him to set it on her. “The enemies are here. Is it the Horsemen or the Daed?” He sounded anxious.
Kuruny kicked the ground, tossing sand in his direction. She spun on her heel and stalked towards the beach. “You were handy with a sword in Avristar.”
Shimma watched as Krishani ambled past the civilian huts. She felt the villagers’ fear. Krishani was taller than any of them; his elongated ears, angled chin and ghostly white skin made him hard to ignore. They were no longer afraid of the fact he had a white horse. They were afraid because he wasn’t human. Krishani passed the sand dune and Shimma ducked away, heading towards the beach.
• • •
Kuruny said nothing as they neared the beach. Krishani heard the sounds of the fray, and the sadness in his heart deepened. An older man broke away from the panic and ran to Kuruny. He was panting. He stole a glance at the boy and his eyes dug into Kuruny.
“I told you.”
Kuruny held her head high and thrust Krishani towards the elder. “Rand, he can fight.”
Krishani ignored Rand. He looked past the huts, past the bonfire on the beach. He saw something that made prickles of ice crawl up his arms.
It was them.
The ones who led the black-skinned creatures to Avristar, the ones who petitioned Lord Istar for the Flame. It was
them
. The Daed, the minions of the Valtanyana that forced Kaliel to the top of the mountain. Krishani brushed his fingers against the hilt of the sword at his waist and all at once he took hold of the blade and moved fearlessly down to the beach, keeping his eyes locked on the shadowy creature batting off the villagers like swine.
The Daed warrior with the thin blade raised his head. Krishani fixated on him. The dapper warrior pulled the deep hood back and showed his face. Shiny orbs of coal for eyes shone in the starless sky, oily black hair fell around his shoulders. His elongated ears spiked out from beneath the sheaf of hair, his face a sickly shade of grayish white. Black ink stained his face—tattoos. Krishani gaped while two others flanked him. One was brutish with dark brown hair, another elegant and fierce with silvery hair and green eyes. They seemed pensive but deadly. Krishani turned to the coal-eyed warrior and noticed tattoos crawling along his face. They looked like etched symbols of ancient lands. The tattoos shifted across his cheekbones as he took a stride and met his blade with his own.
They fought in a dance, stepping back and forth on the beach, swords clanging and tempers flaring until one of the villagers howled in pain. Wails rose above the pandemonium. Krishani’s eyes darted to the bonfire and the Daed landed a blow to his shoulder. The blade sunk into the inky poison racing through his veins. When the Daed pulled the sword out, black blood ran along the blade.
Krishani turned his attention back to the Daed warrior. Shock caused the Daed to stagger back, gaping at him with eyes full of hesitation.
Krishani dropped to his knees and clutched his right shoulder. He was no longer worried about the Daed. Something more menacing was coming from the sky. He winced at the pain as he scanned the beach for the fallen human. The rest of the foes faded from the beach, entering the cave.
The coal-eyed Daed lurched towards Krishani and knocked him flat on his back. He thrust his elbow into Krishani’s neck, his cold eyes knifing through the boy.
“Stop looking for the Flames!” he hissed.
Krishani froze. He struggled under the pressure of the Daed’s hold, coughing and sputtering as more blood effused the wound. The Daed’s face scrunched up in disgust as he abated the black stuff like it was a deadly poison. He kept his gaze intent on Krishani.
“He will come for you, Ferryman.” He wiped the blood off the blade, then discarded the blade in the sand.
Krishani hastily brought himself to his feet. Seeing the Daed vulnerable, he clenched his fist and closed his eyes. He thought about Wraynas and Remy. They didn’t deserve the pain he had caused them, but this was a Daed warrior. There was nothing but blind anger in him. He flipped his sword point down, energy racing through him. The Daed turned his back as Krishani struck the ground with his sword. There was a crack from the sky. The ground shook, sending the Daed off his feet. Krishani looked up from the hilt. The energy hadn’t hit the Daed head-on. He was scrambling to his feet. Krishani glanced at the sky, Vultures swarming above him. Behind him, lightning hit the bonfire and crackled like it might explode. The Daed stalked towards Krishani, his eyes like daggers.
“Tell him to come for me!” Krishani bellowed. He kicked the sand as the Daed carefully picked up his sword. He didn’t look like he wanted to resume the fight. Krishani felt the charged energy coursing through him. The sky filled with clouds, blocking out the sliver of the moon. Krishani didn’t have the same kind of control over Terra. He felt unhinged as he stood, and staggered backwards.
“Mark my words, Ferryman. Crestaos will destroy everything you are.” The Daed stood there with an even expression, challenging him to strike.
Krishani lowered his sword. Anger in his heart built until it wanted to explode, but he held his ground, afraid to move, afraid of what he might strike if he let the energy loose. “I dare him to come for me.” His tone was low and lethal.
The Daed hardened. “So be it.”
Krishani turned and stalked towards the bonfire. When he glanced over his shoulder the Daed was gone. A prickly cold sensation poured into his veins from something else. He almost forgot, scouring the beach, he spotted two bodies stretched across the sand. Despite the anger and tension building in his gut he tried to ignore the screeching and swooping as the Vultures devoured the fleshy shreds of the men that fought and died. Krishani owed the villagers nothing. All he could think about was the Daed. He faced them, he challenged them.
He would avenge Kaliel, but nothing would ever be right again.
He fell on his knees near the opening to the crevasse, a snivel escaping the back of his throat. Black drops of blood dripped onto the sand as the wound festered. He winced at the stitches of pain and pulled at the hole in his tunic. Cringing, he pulled it over his head. As he looked at his midsection he huffed. Black wisps ensnared his stomach, crawling across his chest, forcing themselves into his heart and lungs. Krishani felt the sting of emptiness as the curse spread across his collar bone and trailed down his left arm.
There was a gasp behind him.
Krishani turned to see Shimma standing there shaking and covering her mouth. He glanced at his blackened torso and back at her. Standing, he grabbed her by the hair. She yelped, then shut her mouth as he dragged her to the tent at the far end of the village. Once inside he dropped onto the cot and pulled Tiki out of the knapsack to be sure none of the Daed had taken her.
“What is the matter with you?” Shimma asked, terror lacing her voice.
“I need you to stitch me up.” His voice was raspy. He let the Vultures have the humans on the beach. He didn’t even try to give them safe passage. He took a deep breath and tried to let some compassion enter his heart, but Shimma stared at him in shock.
She gulped, pulling her blonde hair into a wrap. She tied it with a sash from around her neck and went to dip her hands in a bowl of water. She said nothing as she rummaged around in the hut. She stole a glance at him.
“What are you?” she asked.
“A Ferryman. What are you?”
Shimma looked pained. “A witch. We were trying to help the Flame.”
“Where is it now?”
“Hidden in the cave.” She brought the needle and thread to his shoulder. Taking a deep breath she carefully pricked at his black skin.
Krishani looked away, he couldn’t feel the needle. It was like the more he let the Vultures seep into his soul, the more he felt little of anything. It was like he was slipping away into the nothingness he longed for.
* * *
25 - Morgan Le Fay
The Valtanyana girl’s hair bounced against her pale blue nightgown as she skipped down the thick bramble infested path. Krishani followed her delicate smooth hands, watching as they skimmed over roseless bushes, thorns pricking her skin. She had an airy laugh that wafted through the forest like the wind on a mournful day. She flounced along the twisting path, humming a haunting melody. It sounded like a lullaby, if lullabies were cruel and dreadful. She seemed to float, her hands stretched out at her sides, her face tilted towards the inky night sky. She didn’t have a care in the world, anarchy pounding through her veins, singing through her like blue birds on a warm summer day.
Krishani glanced at his surroundings. Flanked by the thorny bushes, deep green grass below his feet, puffy gray clouds overhead, a large moon hidden behind the masses. An unnatural light permeated the darkness ahead of him. The blue glow lit the tops of his boots in silver. He hated nightmares, and he hated the little girl and the Horsemen she summoned. They made it impossible to ignore death. He wanted to stop them—the Daed, Crestaos and the Valtanyana. If he could do all of that he could have peace.
The little girl clasped her fingers around one of the vines and squeezed it tight, leaves poking through her fingers. She paused and stared at her hand and let it go, blood smearing on her palm. She turned, her black eyes blazing, and held her hand out to Krishani.
“One day you’ll yearn for this,” she whispered quietly. The blood dissolved into wispy white smoke. Her mouth curved up in a mocking smile as her deep black eyes bore into his mismatched ones.
Krishani recoiled from the stench of the blood on her hand, the blood that turned to smoke and seeped from tiny wounds. He pulled himself taut, straightened out his tunic and belt and went for his sword, but it wasn’t there. The little girl smiled like she knew something he didn’t.
“What do you mean?” Krishani asked breathlessly, drowning and trying to find air.
The little girl cocked her head to the side. “You’re halfway there.” The wind carried her words, repeating them over and over until Krishani pulled his hands over his ears.
“Stop it!” he howled.
“Have I frightened you?” Her lips turned down. “Morgana would never want to hurt you.” She looked innocent—innocent and deadly. She could do whatever she wanted whenever she wanted and there was no one to stop her. Unlike the other Valtanyana, she didn’t let her power show on the outside. She kept it hidden, lost in the labyrinth of her existence that was longer than time itself.
Krishani glanced at her, knots lacing his torso. He didn’t want to think about what he was becoming. Elwen didn’t tell him the Vultures had a master.
“Is that who you are?” he asked.
“Sometimes they call me Morgan Le Fay.” She winked, continuing through the brambles and weeds, skipping with graceful precision. She hummed the same tune. Krishani glanced up. The sky was obscured by thin, leafless branches which drew black scraggly lines across it. He wondered where the Horsemen were, which village they were pillaging, who they were killing. Morgana didn’t say anything about them. He wanted to ask but was choked. It was like there was a wire around his heart that cinched tighter every time he even thought of straying from the path. Not that running through tangled rosebushes was his idea of fun, but it would give him freedom. Freedom until something else ensnared him in its hook.
Morgana reached a cobblestone wall rising out of the ground beside the bushes. A thick tree trunk protruded from the left side of the wall, the branches hanging over the walkway. She descended the sidewalk appearing out of the thickness of the dead forest. The walls rose higher around them as the sidewalk spiraled down and down, deeper and deeper into the land. Krishani sucked in a breath as he followed her like a puppet to its master. Morgana seemed pleased about it. She ran her bloodied hand along the cobblestones, staining rocks as she passed.
The sidewalk got steep and he smelled something rotten the farther they went. An unnatural blue light plastered the stones, but didn’t produce shadows. They all shone the same eerie brightness. He didn’t want to face this—he didn’t want to become her pawn—but what happened on the beach with the men he left for the Vultures, this had to be because of them.
Morgana was right: he was close. Close to wanting to taste and devour the wispy smoke, close to needing it more than he needed a heartbeat.
Morgana stopped short and Krishani almost crashed into her. If he hadn’t been so afraid of her he would have been content to knock her down, but this was a dream, one she controlled. She held a hand up to silence him even though he hadn’t said a word. She stepped down from the seeming platform of the sidewalk and he followed, his feet hitting the sandy floor of an underground courtyard.
It was another garden.
This one was different. Cobblestones rose on either side of the hexagonal shape of the room. It opened up on the left and led into a cave. Krishani thought he saw the gleam of an eye in the shadows, but averted his gaze. The unnatural blue light came from an orb on top of a podium in the center. Vines hung on the walls, some of them brown and yellow while others were green and blossomed with brightly colored flowers, randomly draped along the walls and hung from the ceiling. The stone walls were cracked, giving it a pleached and archaic look, like a tomb.
Morgana clasped her hands together as he glanced at the orb and noticed it was really a flame. A round metal bowl rested beneath it, the blue and white fire hovering above it. It was bruised purple at the edges, but didn’t flicker. It seemed frozen. He looked at Morgana, unsure what she wanted, but her expression was a mask of bemusement.
“You don’t know what this is.” Her voice was a low, whispering squeak.
Krishani glared. He wanted to be back in his body, back in the cot, in the hut in the village along the cove of the land he called Terra. He would rather face Crestaos than face a little girl.
“It’s a justice flame,” Morgana said. Her little body neared the pillar, but it was two feet higher than the top of her head and she couldn’t touch the flame. She drew her bloodied hand up to it and giggled.
“What do you want from me?” Krishani asked, his jaw set in a tight line. He knew not to set her off. He didn’t want to try to bargain with her or convince her to go back to Avrigost.
Morgana stuck out her bottom lip like she was pouting, and in that moment she looked very childlike. “I wanted you to see.” Her eyes shone with tears. “When I summon them.”
“Summon who?”
“The Valtanyana.”
So not all of them were awake yet. She was one little girl in a forest of brambles somewhere on Terra with Horsemen to protect her, but the Daed hadn’t awakened all of them. Not yet.
Krishani fidgeted in his tunic. He wanted to grab her by the hair and pull it back, make her talk. Instead, he thought about what it would take to stop her and his mind went blank. He remembered Mallorn’s words:
I do not even know how he was stopped the first time.
Krishani clenched his fist, his eyes boring into hers. “Why?”
Morgana let a thin smile prick at the corners of her mouth, like she was remembering something from a distant past. “Because the land belongs to us.”
“The land belongs to Tor.”
Morgana looked livid. She shot him a piercing gaze that made him double over and clutch his torso with both hands. “He was one of us,” she hissed, and she didn’t sound like a little girl anymore. “He betrayed us!” Her little hands balled into fists, the justice flame flaring, her hair billowing around her face. “And he locked us away.”
He heard the story so many times, but wasn’t willing to question the only High King he had ever known. It was blasphemy to speak of Tor like he was the enemy. He stayed rigid, waiting for the dream to end, waiting to wake up. The little girl seethed and there was a loud pounding overhead. Mud fell into his hair and the flame flickered. She looked up, seemingly confused. The look turned sardonic as she moved towards the stairwell, but Krishani wasn’t compelled the follow, the puppet strings snapped.
She glanced at him and her lips quirked up in a terrible smile. “You’ll find me when your soul is black as night.” And she was gone, disappearing up the spiral sidewalk, her bare feet pitter-pattering along the cobblestones.
Krishani let the darkness slide across his vision as the invisible strings holding him to her snapped. Searing pain shocked him awake and made him thrash until he realized where he was.
Still in a nightmare.
• • •
Krishani stopped fighting reality and eyed the roof of the hut. Thick layers of straw lay on top of it, preventing leaks. He threw an arm over his face and let the heaviness entrench him. The dreams were supposed to make him feel better, they were supposed to be about Kaliel, but with the growing lapse in time and the deadly crushing weight of the disease pressing into him, dreams weren’t helping.
He stretched out on the little cot for hours, staring into space, letting his thoughts turn to mush. He could barely fathom how he had come from a place of beauty to the catastrophic wastelands he faced now. Avristar was becoming more like a dream every day, and the stinging pain of reality was beginning to feel normal.
It was as though happy places and happy endings never existed at all.
He sighed loudly and rolled onto his side. Tiki sat in the knapsack, her light a dim hum in the darkened hut. Nights seemed long, longer than they had been on Avristar, and days seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. He shrugged off his tunic and traced the black wound on his shoulder. Shimma was masterful at stitching him up, but it throbbed. So did the wound near his hip. As he grazed it with his right hand he noticed the disease curled around his hip, but left the white spot unmarked.
He felt the Vulture’s pulse in his ears, the nothingness threatening to consume him. The progression of the disease didn’t hurt; it simply made him feel numb. The pain he did feel was crunched into sections of his body that wouldn’t stop burning. The pain made him realize he was still alive. He wasn’t one of them yet.
But he would be.
The Vultures wanted it.
Morgana wanted it.
His stomach rumbled in defiance and he winced. He couldn’t face the villagers and he was out of his own food. Castle Tavesin was at least a week away, through the ominous mountains. He groaned. Even if he didn’t want to, he’d have to ask the villagers to provide for him, and return to Elwen. He had to ask someone for help.
Krishani looked at his hands, grief still dragging his heart to the depths of the ocean. He wanted the freedom of death, of rebirth, of being given another life, a different life. Krishani was no Ferryman to Kaliel, no warrior of death, no savior against the Vultures, no hero in the Lands of Men.
Without her, he was nothing.
Krishani took a shaky breath and let the pain in his extremities flow over him like waves lapping against the shore. He needed to face Elwen. He needed to beg him to reveal the secret to traveling to the other Lands of Men. Elwen alluded to conversations between the other Ferrymen. He needed to know how.
There was no time left. The Valtanyana and his armies were coming, and his only hope of beating them rested with the Flames.
• • •
Kuruny barged into the hut, her lungs bursting for air as she heaved in heavy breaths and gaped at Krishani. He flinched and stared at her with questioning eyes.
“You fool!” she cried. Her hands grasped her throat. Krishani frowned as her hands trailed along marks left in her flesh. Human hand prints stretched along her neck, red welts on her fair skin. She doubled over and coughed. “They want you gone. Before more die.”
Krishani sat back on the cot, calmly gazing into her long black dress and strands of midnight hair falling past her waist. “They brought this on themselves.” His voice devoid of emotion.
Kuruny collapsed on the animal hide in the center of the hut and fixed her eyes on him. “The man on the white horse brings death.”
Krishani shrugged. “I don’t follow death, it follows me.” She glowered at him. He recognized the expression. It was the way she used to look at him in Avristar.
“Why are you so cavalier?” she snapped, her voice ragged. She turned to the far corners of the hut, pawing around for something. She lifted the lid of a barrel with stale water. She dipped her hands into it and slurped.
Krishani shook his head and grabbed the bowl beside the bed. “Use a bowl.” He held it out for her.
She eyed him warily and grabbed the bowl, scooping out more water and bringing it to her lips. She looked like she had been attacked. Moments went by in silence. Krishani refused to answer. He owed her nothing, owed the villagers nothing. They were harboring something he needed and she didn’t seem the least bit concerned about the Daed seeking to possess the Flame.
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and rubbed it along her dress. As she brought her eyes to his face, her expression changed. “What happened to you?”
Krishani averted his gaze and slid his blackened hand under his thigh. He didn’t need speculation from Kuruny about what was happening to him. She likely never heard of Vultures. He cast a defiant look in her direction and hunched up his shoulders. “I thought it was obvious.”
Kuruny snickered and clasped her hands together. “Oh, poor, precious Kaliel,” she sung. She giggled and shook her head, her eyes boring into him with intense clarity. “That was never meant to end well.”
Krishani gritted his teeth, his eyes hardening. “The villagers want me gone, so why prolong it? Give me the Flame and I’ll go away.”
Her fierceness faded as her hand trailed along her neck. “They took her.”
Krishani’s eyes widened. “They what?” He jumped to his feet and balled his hands into fists. He wanted to punch something. Instead, he entwined his fingers together and held the back of his head.
She was quiet for a long time. “They took her. Are you happy? They took her because of you.”
Krishani turned, his expression vile. “It was my fault? You housed a Flame when you knew the danger, and it’s
my
fault?”